Mnemonic City: Moving Streets

Part of the series Mnemonic City, Moving Streets is the latest exhibition of Magma Collective. Ridley Road Market has been the starting point for a three-month derive that ended up in a two-day exhibition and live performances at Doomed Gallery.

The market has been the magnifier to explore relationships, trade, city spaces and the point of departure for the collective’s flaneries: a way to investigate the urban and human topography of Dalston.

Through their walks, Magma Collective experienced the city as a device able to trigger memories, build and witness history. Three months of exchanges, investigations, constant contact with the area, made the artists aware of the possibilities of the market and the surrounding areas.

Where are the borders of relations and spaces? What is the limit an artist encounters in exploring a complex organism such as Ridley Road Market?

Pascal Ancel Bartholdi, Mikail Baur, Anna Burel, Rodrigo César, Yasmine Dainelli, Ken Flaherty, Rupert Jaeger, Max, Michael Picknett, Yuri Pirondi, Julien Thomasset, Lucia Tong, Jaime Valtierra, Ines Von Bonhorst. These are the artists that worked at the project for three months of intense collaboration and sharing, with the aim to build new connections with a public space where the network is based on the coexistence of cultural differences.

The nocturnal video of Ines Von Bonhorst, the map collage of Anna Burel, the paintings of Jaime Valtierra, the video performance of Yuri Pirondi are only few examples of the artists’ responses to the explored environment. Although the individual works are dissimilar in techniques and practices, the exhibition as a whole recreates the feeling of a market, where the space is filled with conversations and exchanges. These dialogues among art works convey the sense of what coexistence in an urban space means, and of how difficult and enriching it can be. The artists of Magma Collective developed their practices while building relationships with the local community and engaging with its meanings, producing a collaborative portrait of Ridley Road Market that is complex, challenging and inspiring.